"Forgive Others"
So…
When it comes to forgiving others, how are you doing?
Let’s face it, forgiving others is hard! Sometimes impossible!
Especially, when the other person is an idiot!
When what they have done is particularly painful or even horrible!
When they have not only hurt you, but embarrassed you, and betrayed you!
When there is very little charitable energy left in our hearts to somehow indicate that we have any desire to somehow let them off the hook for the nightmare they have created.
We hear the scripture and understand that forgiveness is something we do for us and not necessarily for them, but we still struggle to be forgiving because that would mean letting go of our anger and our pain.
Forgiving, of course, is not erasing what has happened.
It does not alleviate the offenders need to confess nor does it change the offenders need to make amends, even when that may be impossible.
Forgiving is something we do simply because we have been forgiven.
It’s crazy, but when we forgive, we reveal - at the most basic level - the presence of God within us. We forgive because God first forgave us.
But it is not easy.
In fact, one suspects that’s why Peter asks Jesus about how many times we must forgive people who regularly need forgiving.
In this respect I truly admire Peter.
When Peter saw an idiot, he was perfectly willing to call them out. He was as scripture presents him not terribly tolerant guy.
And in the TV show The Chosen he is there in full color going full tilt on Matthew the former tax collector.
He cannot imagine forgiving Matthew. Matthew sins were too great! Remember, Matthew was a collaborator with the hated Roman government. He was to be hated.
Yet Jesus invites Peter to instead forgive.
So, one can imagine Peter say to Jesus, “how long Lord, how many times”!
And Jesus response, “77x7”, while it might equal 539 times, really means, “forever” or more simply, as many times as God has and will forgive you.
God’s forgiveness is unimaginable in its volume, forgiveness so rich and free that it simply boggles the imagination. We cannot plumb the depth, we cannot measure the width, we cannot fathom the love it requires.
It is so amazing, so beyond comprehension it is like George Clooney or Anna de Armas asking you out on a date, Shaq stopping by your house to pick you up to go to a Knick’s game, Warren Buffet picking up the tab for all your groceries for the rest of your life, or Stephen Spielberg picking you star in the next Indiana Jones sequel.
So beyond comprehension, that is like a cruel tyrant being generous.
And that’s why the parable.
So let’s hear what the parable is saying!
Jesus is not suggesting that God is like a cruel tyrant who plans to force a debtor’s wife into slavery in an attempt to pay a debt that can’t be paid.
Rather Jesus shares with us that our God forgives in an extravagant way, like this king who forgives an unbelievable sum even though it is not in his nature. He is not kind and generous. This is shockingly beyond expectation!
Jesus tells his listeners and us, that God’s grace is overwhelming, beyond comprehension, magnanimous in the extreme.
That our God acts in ways that are shocking and surprising in a tyrant, but total consistent with a God of love!
That our God acts in ways like the unjust judge in another parable who finally listens to the importuning widow.
The point is not the awful character of the human kings and judges, but the total surprise we feel when they act with compassion.
They are not compassionate.
But how could we miss the fact that our God is – and that the expectation is we will act like our Heaven Father does in forgiving others.
That we are to forgive in the same way as our amazing Heavenly Father, who has forgiven us now and forever.
What does the Lord’s prayer say?
“Forgives us our debts, our transgressions, our sins, in the way that we forgive those of others!”
Shocking!
Amazing grace for sure!
Offering to others the love of God that God has shared with us!
Go and do likewise.